The present invention relates to speech recognition. In particular, the present invention relates to graphical interfaces used in conjunction with speech recognition.
Speech recognition is currently being used in computer systems to translate spoken words into computer commands or alternatively to translate spoken words into text to appear in such things as computer generated documents, computer calendars, or e-mail messages.
Since speech recognition systems attempt to process any speech they “hear”, most systems include a mechanism to activate and deactivate the recognizer so that unwanted speech is not processed. To help the user, many prior art systems include a graphical interface that indicates whether the recognizer was active or not. Other systems provide volume meters that indicate the volume of the speech signal received by the speech recognizer. To avoid obstructing the working area, these graphical interfaces appear in the corner of the active window or in a menu bar. In addition, if there are multiple meters on the display, they are separated from each other so that they can be easily read.
As a result of the positioning of the graphical interfaces, the user's attention is diverted from the insertion point where they expect their speech input to take effect. In addition, the user must look in separate areas if multiple status indicators are shown. Thus, under the prior art, the user's attention is divided from their primary task when they check on the status of the speech recognizer.